For days, since learning of Steve’s death, I have read the emails and Facebook
posts from so many whose lives he touched. I have talked with others—heard
the words—generous, kind, funny, loving, poet, teacher, mentor, publisher,
friend. He was all of those things, had such an impact on hundreds of students,
colleagues, friends. He connected me to so many of you beautiful, gifted poets,
writers, friends.
And, yes, when I tell of him, I use those words, too. This is how I knew him.
Steve was my first poetry teacher more than 20 years ago and has been over and over
again, at workshops, classes, and readings; at The Writing Center, Southwestern
College, San Diego Writers Ink; at coffee shops and bookstores and churches. He
once asked me to co-teach a class for Seniors and Alzheimer’s patients at
St. Paul’s Villa. What a thrill and validation!
His greeting, always, “How are ya? Ya doin’ OK?” in a way that
I knew he meant it, he really wanted to know. As we aged together (we are the same
age), we began to share news of a bad back or tweaky knees, hearing aids and cataract
surgery; how things that used to be easy now took much more energy. Not complaints,
but a common bond.
I have not been able to make sense of the reality of his death until today—four
days since I heard the impossible news. It left me reeling, shocked, devastated—dramatic
words I rarely use, certainly never frivolously or cheaply, their meaning so profound.
It has been impossible to conceive of my world, our world, without him in it. Today
I write it, think I can wrap my brain and heart around the truth of it. I don’t
claim to have been as close to him or known him as well as many. I do not negate
others’ perhaps, even greater feelings of loss. Mine is deep; it is my own. Today
I add a word to the list of praise for this man who means so much to me—authentic—he
was the most real person I know—an authentic human being. Oh, yes, I’ll also
add “cheerleader.” He always wanted us to do well!
I send to all who loved him, and to his beautiful wife, Mary, whom he loved so much
and whose loss must be the greatest of all, the wishes, the words he emailed me
on my birthday. “Hope it’s a wonderful, fertile, productive, healthy deliciously
happy year! Hugs & more hugs, love & more love, Steve.”
Yours in grief and gratitude,
Sylvia Levinson
—Previously published in “Tributes to Steve Kowit” in the San Diego Reader
(7 April 2015), where Steve Kowit was the editor of the weekly poetry column since 2006; republished
here by author’s permission
moved to California in 1962 and to San Diego County in 1974, which she hopes qualifies
her as a “local.” Her poetry life began when she worked in marketing
at the Old Globe Theatre for several years. She is the author of a chapbook, Spoon
(Finishing Line Press, 2013), and Gateways: Poems of Nature, Meditation and
Renewal (Caernarvon Press, 2005). Her work has been published in several
journals and anthologies including: Blue Arc West, City Works, San Diego Writers
Ink, Magee Park, The Christian Science Monitor, The Reader, and Serving House
Journal.
She believes “retirement” is an active verb which propels her poetry,
workshops, volunteer work at KSDS Jazz 88.3 FM, and attendance at many theater and
jazz performances each year.
www.sylvialevinson.com